When should you start reading children's books to your child? From a year, two, three years? Or maybe much earlier? Why is early development dangerous and when can you teach a child to read? When should children start reading fairy tales?

Glad to see you again, friends! Moms, at what age do you think a child can read books? What should they be?

They just brought a beautiful and bright envelope from the maternity hospital. Little Miracle sleeps sweetly and snores sweetly in his crib. There is such silence in the house that you can hear the light breeze swaying the branches outside the window... A somewhat lyrical beginning, but at such moments the mother contemplates her happiness, cherishes the most secret thoughts in her head about raising the baby, plans for the future life. Miracle enters our hearts more and more.

Reading fairy tales pacifies, calms, and affects the development of the child. It's time to familiarize yourself with some rules and nuances. At what month is it time to introduce your baby to the world of magic? You can start at 3 months. But at this age, the baby will not yet be able to grasp the essence of what you are telling. But he will be happy to listen to his mother’s beloved voice, which he has known for a long time.

Choose calm, simple fairy tales. “Turnip” and “Kolobok” are perfect for this, those in which the same actions are often repeated. It is important for a child to have contact with his mother; he hears and enjoys it. Learns to understand the difference in intonation and recognize emotions. Simple fairy tales that you know yourself are best told by heart. It is better to use where there may be a bun with Velcro, this will certainly interest the baby.

Second half of the first year of life

6 months is a great age to taste everything. Reading books will become somewhat problematic; your child will certainly begin to lick the book, bite it, and also smack its lips.

A six-month-old baby, despite his interest in tasting everything, can not only listen, but also associate the meaning of words with the image. It is worth giving preference to those books in which the pictures depict one, maximum two objects. For example, “My first toys” (each page shows only one toy, there can be quite a lot of such pages), “Pets” and so on.

Read bedtime stories to your baby; this should become your mandatory ritual. This will make the process of falling asleep easier. When the ritual is followed, the baby gains a sense of security; he already knows exactly what follows after reading a fairy tale - sleep.

After 8 months

Choose books that depict action. For example, the picture shows a fairy-tale character who is going somewhere. Voice these simple actions “top-top”, water drips “drip-drip”. Did you know that the more verbs there are in the active vocabulary, the sooner the baby’s speech will be formed? That’s right, verbs “overgrow” with nouns faster than vice versa.

My friend started buying them while she was still pregnant. To my perplexing question - is it too early? - she answered unequivocally: just right! A baby can and even needs to read almost from birth. No, of course, you shouldn’t take a thick encyclopedia, even a children’s one, and study it from cover to cover. And you don’t even have to acquire a huge book of fairy tales (although you will, of course, need one in the future). But little poems and nursery rhymes to start with are just what you need. They play a significant role in the emotional and speech development of the child.

First, thanks to simple and melodic phrases with frequently repeated sounds, the baby learns to recognize voices, respond to their intonation coloring, and then gradually begins to repeat the sounds they like. By the way, it’s very good to memorize or simply copy on pieces of paper and hang around the house several thematic poems, for example, about washing, sleeping, eating or walking, and read them every time before a certain action:

Water, water,
Wash my face
To make your eyes sparkle,
To make your cheeks blush,
To make your mouth laugh,
So that the tooth bites.

Pussy, pussy, pussy, scat!
Don't sit on the path:
Our baby will go
Will fall through the pussy!..

Nursery rhymes like these help develop a child’s associative skills. Firstly, after several repetitions, he will know what action will follow certain words, and secondly - as a result - he will quickly and easily begin to understand the meaning of these very words.

However, from the moment a child turns into a slider, reading books to him becomes problematic. All my attempts to read poems about animals to my son with a demonstration of colorful pictures began to end in failure. No, not because he was uninterested - on the contrary, even very much so! That is why, every time he saw an open book, he tried to contrive and rip out the picture in order to taste it - but what would he do without it. The same friend solved the reading problem by giving us a book with thick cardboard pages and bright pictures. She has been buying these for her son since he was 6 months old. It is comfortable to hold and can be given into the hands of a child without fear that the book will be “eaten.” And most importantly, by learning to turn the pages independently, the child becomes familiar with the purpose of the book, and at the same time develops fine motor skills.

When purchasing such publications, you should follow some mandatory rules. First of all, this is, of course, quality: no smelly paint or peeling pages, a strong spine and no folding bulk parts that are easy to tear off and put in your mouth again. In general, a child under 1.5-2 years old perceives a book as a toy, and therefore the most important thing about it is its colorfulness and unusualness. You should not try to buy a publication where a whole “action” is depicted on each page. Perhaps you, as an adult, find it interesting when a drawing conveys as much information as possible, but for a child’s perception this is a bit difficult. The same applies to the text under the picture - 1-2 lines per page, if this is a fairy tale, will be enough. If it’s poetry, then it’s better in quatrains.

By the way, child psychologists recommend checking the contents of a book before you start reading it to your baby. Don’t be lazy, flip through it in the store, make sure that there are no evil characters, fights, tears or other negative aspects in the book - both in the text and in the pictures. These are not the best episodes for kids.

In addition to books with nursery rhymes, it would be nice to have collections of finger games. Essentially, these are the same poems, rhymed jokes and jokes. Only a “commentary” is added to their story using hands:

Playing such games with your baby is very useful, and not only because the text accompanied by action is easier to understand and easier to remember. Everything in our body is interconnected. Finger and hand movements stimulate the brain very well, especially the part of it that is responsible for speech. So, the more you play these games, the faster you will hear the first word, and then the phrase from your baby. Just don’t chase results: of course, a child gets great pleasure from playing with his favorite adults, but everything should be sincere. Try it, and you will see what a storm of delight the same “white-sided magpie” will cause if mom or dad emotionally talk about how she cooked porridge and excitedly “draw” the story on her palm. But if the game turns into a duty - 3 times a day at the same time, then the child will quickly lose interest in it. After all, children sense falsehood very subtly. In short, less is more.

Well, is it worth reading books to those who are a year old, two years old or older? It’s no longer a question - of course, read them!
But what exactly?

When choosing a book for your child, the main thing is not to forget how old he is. No matter how much you love the fairy tale “The Wizard of the Emerald City” or “Dunno on the Moon,” you should not buy it for a two- or three-year-old. He is not yet ready to accept such intricate stories, and the purchased book simply will not arouse his interest. Such works are good for older children - from the age of five. At this age, they already have enough experience and knowledge to imagine events that have never happened to them before in their lives, and heroes that they have never seen.

As for children aged 2-3 years, they still need books with pictures and non-loading texts. These could be poems by Barto or Chukovsky, short fairy tales - for example, about Kolobok or Chicken Ryaba, and - again - all kinds of nursery rhymes. The main thing is that the works that you read to your baby include people, animals and events that are well known to him, since at this age reading primarily helps to memorize various objects, and at the same time teaches him to compare situations.

By the age of four, the child’s knowledge and vocabulary is already wide enough to finally get that “Big Book of Fairy Tales” from the far shelf. Now the baby will be interested in folklore works, epics, and various fairy tales. True, you shouldn’t be too zealous: despite the fact that a child can already draw a clear line between truth and fiction, it is better if the characters and objects involved in fairy tales are close to real life. So postpone your acquaintance with space travel and parallel worlds until you are five or even six years old. By the way, if you come across scary stories about ghouls, werewolves and aspen stakes, of which there are many in some fairy tale collections, it is better to skip them rather than try to tickle your child’s nerves. It is very difficult to predict how such a story will affect his psyche. Psychologists say that it is at this age that the main backbone of phobias and fears is laid, the cause of which is precisely all kinds of scarecrows and horror stories.

As for five- and six-year-olds, you can already go wild here: pick up good children's books - let them be as diverse as possible in genre, style and plots. At this age, the child is already able to imagine almost any detail, and he does not need pictures for this. You don't know what the turbostar self-propelled vehicle that appears throughout the fairy tale looks like? Not scary. Ask your baby doll about this - he will explain it to you. And with all the details. His imagination already works so well that he can both understand what is said in science fiction stories and “read between the lines.” This means that now your task will be not so much to teach and interest, but to guide gently and without pressure.

Have fun reading!

Every person remembers how parents or teachers read fairy tales to them in childhood. A fairy tale is communication with a child in a magical language that is well understood by him; these are small, safe life lessons. Young children identify themselves with the main character of the fairy tale and live with them, learning from his mistakes. With the help of fairy tales, parents teach their child how to behave in different life situations. Fairy tales teach children empathy and compassion; listening to fairy tales, they become more attentive and assiduous.

Start reading fairy tales You can practically from the cradle, but you will learn to perceive them well no earlier than 4 years. A child who is not yet one and a half years old needs to read the fairy tales “Turnip”, “Kolobok”, “Ryaba Hen” and fairy tales in verse. In these fairy tales there are animals and minor worries about the fate of the characters in fairy tales, which are transferable to the baby. The main task of parents when reading fairy tales to toddlers is to teach them to listen. Let the child sit on mom or dad's lap and listen to phrases and words that are still unclear to him.

If parents read fairy tale with soft intonation and a calm voice, then the baby feels warmth and joy coming from the book they are holding in their arms. Negative impressions from hearing a sad fairy tale can cause a feeling of fear in a child. And if the experiences of a fairy tale are stressful, then the baby instinctively protects himself from them and strives to get to the happy ending as quickly as possible. Therefore, children under 4 years of age should not read Korney Chukovsky’s fairy tales “The Cockroach” and “The Tsokotukha Fly,” even though these fairy tales have a good rhyme.

Semantic expressions, such as “swallowed”, “torn”, “trampled”, “frightened”, can cause trauma to the child’s psyche. Similar fairy tales by other authors, where there are similar phrases, do not need to be read to children; let him grow up a little and when he understands the plot of the fairy tale, you can familiarize yourself with these world-famous children's works. For the youngest children, it is better to read fairy tales by V.G. Suteev, poems and fairy tales by V.M. Stepanov, poems by Marshak, Agnia Barto, Mikhalkov, Blagina and others. Parents need to carefully filter fairy tales before reading them to their young child. When buying a book for your baby, pay attention to the age at which children are recommended to read them. If such information is not on the book, then leaf through it yourself.

Illustrations and pictures it should be on the book every time you open a new page. They help to better perceive the plot of a fairy tale. There should be no scary images on the cover or inside the book; many children are afraid of them. For small children, it is better to buy cardboard books so that they cannot tear their leaves. Carefully read the plot of a fairy tale or poem. A children's fairy tale for kids should be short and simple, with a happy ending and convey the idea that parents want to convey to their baby. If you think there are negative elements, then avoid buying this book for now.

So that the baby remembers fairy tale better, psychologists advise not to read, but to tell them. The fact is that when a person tells a fairy tale, his voice is more confidential and warm. When telling a story, the child feels more strongly the attitude of the parent himself towards the hero of fairy tales and more easily understands whether he condemns the hero or admires him. However, you should not overdo it and get too carried away, telling the fairy tale in a scary voice and crying, gesturing with your hands and showing scenes from the fairy tale. The task of the parents is not to scare them, but to convey the hero’s state in a quiet and calm voice. Show your child illustrations; children will remember for a long time what they saw. Ask your baby questions, even though he doesn’t know how to answer them yet. Questions make him think and encourage him to ask you himself about the moments of the fairy tale that interest him.

Fairy tales should be read according to age baby. Starting from the age of two, you can read fairy tales with a more complex plot to your child. For example, the Hare and the Fox", "Teremok", the Arrogant Bunny" and the like. For children over 3 years old, tell fairy tales where there are people along with animals. These are the fairy tales “Masha and the Bear”, “Puss in Boots”, “Geese-Swans”, “Cervical Cancer” and others. It is better to start reading fairy tales where wizards and sorcerers are present after the age of 5.

In children under five years of age prevails logical thinking, they really believe in miracles. For children over five years old, the fairy tales “The Snow Queen”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Thumbelina”, “Twelve Months”, “The Nutcracker” and others are useful.

It is better for young children to read Russian folk tales, as they teach the child kindness and empathy. Even if the fairy tale is not Russian, we must take into account that it ends well. No matter what adventures happen to the heroes of the fairy tale throughout the entire plot, in the end good must win.

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Many reading enthusiasts argue that you can read to a child from the moment of birth, and even better, start this noble task before birth. In the last months of pregnancy, you sit, stroke your belly and read some Winnie the Pooh. And then, as we are told, the newborn baby will certainly “recognize” this book as familiar.
I have nothing against. I am for it". It is very useful for an expectant mother to read talented children's books, especially such as “Winnie the Pooh,” because they have all the “magical” qualities of art, and even tune in to the child, subtly and unobtrusively telling about the peculiarities of his worldview.
I even believe that it is generally useful for a woman to read - not only during pregnancy, but also without it. And a “reading mother,” moreover, is an important circumstance for the appearance of a reading child in the future. As for the baby, whether he “recognizes” the text read to him in the womb or encounters it “at the new ones” is not very significant. It is important to meet.
But as a result, it turns out that the recommendation “start reading before birth” is devoid of any practical meaning, because it does not answer the question of when to start showing your child books and at what age. And how to do this?

A “reading mother” is an important circumstance for the appearance of a reading child in the future.

Let's try to figure it out.
What is a book? First of all, this is the subject. Unlike a stone or a stick, this is a man-made object, created for certain, specifically human needs. Just like a saucepan is made to cook in, a comb is made to comb your hair, a chair is made to sit on, a spoon is made to eat. Accordingly, there are special rules for using this item.
The subject “book” is addressed to our imagination. In addition to the action of turning pages, it also requires other, invisible, internal actions from us.

A book is a special object addressed to our imagination.

These two circumstances - the specific “objectivity” of the book and the child’s ability to perceive it - determine the time of book start for the little ones.

* * *
Since a book is a “specific object,” it means that the child will be able to perceive its specificity when he reaches a certain degree of mental maturity. The surrounding objects begin to interest the baby quite early - when he begins to reach out to them with his hands. But for some time (what is called early childhood), the main goal of such interest is to perform some kind of action on an object: put it in the mouth, throw it out of the playpen, make it make some kind of sound. An eight-month-old, one-year-old, and one-and-a-half-year-old child is concerned not so much with the specific purpose of objects as with their properties that appear in response to action.
In other words, if you put a saucepan with a lid in front of your child, he will happily remove it and noisily put it back in place. But this manipulation with the lid does not mean that the child “comprehends” the true purpose of the pan. At the moment he is learning the principle of “in and out.” Like Eeyore, who received an empty honey pot as a gift. If you put a book in front of a child of the same age - a large, beautiful one, with strong cardboard pages, he will most likely discover that the pages can be turned. This activity - turning the pages - will become the main thing. But it still has little to do with the perception of beauty, no matter how much we convince ourselves that it’s all about the magic of beauty. The point is the thick cardboard and the volume of the item. For a child of a certain age, turning pages is not much different from manipulating a pot lid. There's nothing wrong with that. This is useful in its own way - provided that the book does not tear. Or if it doesn’t happen like one mother did: on the advice of a progressive friend, she bought an expensive fashionable book for her eight-month-old son, and he chews on it.
So he is in his right! Explores the world around him in ways accessible to him.

For a young child, turning the pages of a book is not much different from manipulating a saucepan lid.

The first signs that it is “time” to show your child books may be his attempts to use other objects for their intended purpose. For example, run a comb through your hair (and not just count the emerging teeth with it). Or bring the spoon to your mouth yourself, use a cup. Put different hats on your head - your own and other people's, but only on your head. This is a signal that the book can be perceived for its specific purpose - as an object for a special action.

The first signs that it is time to show your baby books may be his attempts to use other objects for their intended purpose.

But the baby himself, without an adult, cannot yet perform this specific action. Leaving a small child alone with a book (even if it is made of thick cardboard) means creating conditions for turning the book into an object of arbitrary manipulation, putting it on the same level as a saucepan or cubes.
- Look, Ksyushenka, who is this drawn here? This is a cat. Do you see what a cat is? Oh, you little kitten, little gray pubis. Come, little cat, spend the night and rock our Ksyushenka (the word “baby” is very correctly replaced by the baby’s name). Look what the cat is doing? Rocks the cradle. Who lies in the cradle? Ksyushechka. Here she is, my Ksyushechka. How can I shake her? Like this…

A book serves its true purpose for a child only when he communicates about it with an adult.

Can this be called pure reading? It's more like a parental ritual over a book.
Speech improvisation, constantly deviating from the written text, constantly appealing to the baby, to his experience, to interaction with him. One wonderful mother, who began showing her daughter books very early, described the process this way: “How do we read? That's how. Open the book and look at the picture. I'll tell you something about this picture. I show where everyone is, what they are called, and what they are doing. And Ksyusha shows me where everyone is. She remembers well what is drawn here, and she really likes looking at the pictures and listening to me tell something at this time. But when I start to read what is written, she stops me. She prefers to listen to me invent something of my own.”
This behavior is typical for children who have not yet spoken or are just beginning to speak. It is determined by the laws of child speech development.
Speech, the most important achievement of a child and his most important life tool, grows from communication with an adult, who in psychology is called a “close adult.” In order for a baby to speak by the age of one and a half years, he must hear human speech from birth. And not speech in general, not background speech, but the speech of a close adult, addressed personally to him.

In order for a baby to speak by the age of one and a half years, he must hear human speech addressed to him personally from birth.

Observations of babies in infant homes lead to sad conclusions: “technical speech” does not have any influence on the development of babies. The tape recorder can work twenty-four hours a day - “sing” lullabies and tell nursery rhymes. This will in no way advance homeless children in speech development. Even constantly talking nannies can change very little in the situation. There are too few of them for such a number of pupils. They too rarely direct their words to a specific child. So orphaned infants experience a deficit of communication in general, and a deficit of verbal communication in particular. This is one of the most important reasons why such children lag behind their peers in development. Doctor of Psychological Sciences Elena Smirnova in her book “Crawlers and Walkers” writes that it is completely useless to address young children (these are children aged from one to three), when they, for example, are in kindergarten, with the word “children”. They simply “don’t hear” and don’t relate to such “collective” treatment. Everyone must be called by name.
Book speech is a generalized appeal. After all, it was not written for this particular child. In order to perceive it, the child must learn to “hear” the word “children”. This usually occurs between the ages of two and three years. The ability to classify oneself as a member of the “children” group is closely related to the awakening of individual self-awareness (in order to classify oneself, one must first learn to distinguish oneself). We learn that it has “awakened” by the appearance of the pronoun “I” in the baby’s speech, which, as a rule, marks the most important event - the “three-year crisis.” It is clear that the “three” mark is quite arbitrary. Some children experience a crisis six months earlier, others six months later. From the point of view of reading, the main thing is the emergence in the child of a new sense of self associated with “I”.
With the emergence of “I”, a new stage of socialization begins, i.e. It is possible to expand your social circle, it is possible to establish new relationships with a variety of people - not only with close adults. The expanding circle of communication, of course, also includes such “interlocutors” as authors of children’s books. This is the moment that marks the beginning of a new, “bookish” period - when the child’s ability to perceive texts increases sharply, the number of texts accessible to understanding increases greatly.
But we start reading to the baby much earlier, focusing on the child’s speech capabilities.

With the advent of “I,” the baby’s ability to perceive texts increases dramatically.

As soon as the baby begins to speak in sentences (even short ones) and put his desires into words, he can not only participate in the “kamlanie” over a book, but also listen to the “hard”, given book text. Each child’s ability to perceive book text develops at his own pace, as does his speech.
But this ability grows from verbal communication with a close adult, from communication around a book, built on speech improvisation. The younger the child, the more adequate verbal communication in the form of storytelling is for him.
So you need to “knock” over books.

Marina Aromstam

An excellent article that I would recommend to all reading families. Well, just in case, if anyone has not yet read about at what age a child can be introduced to a book, at what age it is better to look at and comment on it, and at what age it is best to read it. You can find it in the magazine "Mom and Baby".

How to read to a child? Lively communication with a book that the baby “reads” with his mother is a significant step towards the development of his imaginative thinking and intelligence. A good book generously fills a child’s need for new information and gives him new impressions that will stay with him for life. With the help of the printed word, parents can find the shortest path to their child’s understanding of what kindness, generosity, nobility, and true friendship are.

Alexandra Morozova, Irina Alexandrova
Alexandra Morozova - preschool teacher; Irina Aleksandrova is a philologist, teacher of the highest category.

From 0 to 5-6 months

Getting acquainted with a book is possible already at a very tender age (from 0 to 5-6 months), and it is better to start with children's poems and songs: babies feel poetic and musical rhythm very well. Not yet understanding the meaning of the words, they are already able to adequately respond to their rhythm and intonation of the mother’s voice: if the mother’s words sound playful and cheerful, the baby smiles; if mom speaks in a serious voice, he also becomes serious. This is how the baby develops vital emotions.

From 6 months to a year

From 5-6 months, the child begins to actively use his hands - he likes to touch various objects, shake them, and taste them. The time has come for the baby to become acquainted with toy books, which help develop his tactile memory and fine motor skills, which in turn stimulates the development of speech. A child can touch such a book, using his fingers to examine the material from which it is made, taste it and look at the pictures. This is how the baby gets his first experience with a book.

The illustrations in such books should be large, bright, preferably with different textures and, if possible, “talking”. For example, when you touch it, a cow begins to moo, and a dog begins to bark. And the mother should help the baby learn to “communicate” with them correctly: take the baby in your arms, leaf through the book together, look at it, press the sounding devices together and rejoice. Children under one year old are able to concentrate on a book for only a few seconds, so you can buy several bright books for a child of this age. They should be within the baby’s reach, then he will be happy to reach from one to the other. If you notice that your child's interest in books has cooled, remove them and offer new ones. After some time, the baby will be happy to look at the “old” books again.

Toy books can be with or without text. The text, in turn, should be small and rhythmic - for example, in the form of small melodious quatrains. They must be read in a chant manner and with well-defined intonation.

There are many such books on the book market now. When choosing them, among other things, you need to pay attention to whether the hygienic requirements for such publications are met. First of all, look at the material from which they are made - it should be safe for children, durable and, preferably, washable.

From 1 to 2 years

At the age of one to two years, more and more new words appear in the child’s vocabulary. The baby has to systematize them, comparing them with specific objects and remembering them in his own way. In order for a strong connection to form in the child’s mind between an object and its “name,” this chain must be repeated many times: “the object is its name.” And here again a smart, kind book comes to the rescue.

At this age, many children especially love books about animals. While studying them, a child may fall in love, for example, with a cat and for some time will not notice other animals depicted in the book at all. He will happily turn over the pages of his books again and again, looking for cats in them. This kind of “love” can be used to broaden a child’s horizons - for example, tell where the cat lives, what she eats, what her habits are. This is how the child develops his first conscious interest in the book as a source of positive emotions and new knowledge.

It’s time for a one-year-old child to learn short, simple fairy tales with endless repetitions - “Kolobok” (“I left my grandmother…”), “Turnip” (“We’ll pull, we’ll pull”) and others. Repetitions help the child better imagine what is happening and learn the meaning of what he heard.

At the age of up to 2 years, illustrations continue to play an important role - visual images and words gradually become one whole for the baby, and this is the basis for the development of visual-figurative thinking. Drawings from the first books help to form in the child an accurate idea of ​​the world into which he has come. That's why books for this age should be well illustrated. And adults need to help the child connect the picture and text together. When purchasing the book itself or a collection of fairy tales and poems, pay attention to their artistic design. Books for children should contain a minimum of text and a maximum of illustrations. The most important requirement for drawings in books for young children is that the picture be large, colorful, picturesque, and most importantly, understandable to the baby. If the baby does not understand what is shown in the illustrations, he will lose interest in this book.

For example, when mom or dad read the text, they look at the illustrations for the text and ask the child questions like: “Who is drawn here? Do you remember we read about him just now?” You can buy a puppet theater, then you can read the text and at the same time show the characters of the fairy tale. For the same purpose, you should add books with three-dimensional pictures to your baby’s first library. While the baby's ears are listening to a fairy tale, his mobile fingers open and close the door of the hut, roll the bun along the path, and stroke the fluffy back of the fox. You just need to make sure that the baby’s actions correspond to the text being read at that moment - then the baby will better understand the content and will not lose interest in the reading process itself. Also watch the expression of his eyes and facial expressions. A child’s emotions will tell you a lot: what surprised, pleased, or scared him. After such activities, an observant mother will be able to draw some conclusions about the character of the growing child (how sensitive, fearful, receptive he is, etc.).

When you sit down with your child to read a book, do not forget to first create an atmosphere appropriate for this activity - nothing should distract the child’s attention from reading. To enhance the emotional perception of the text, sometimes you can play quiet classical music - select it in advance so that it matches the intonation of the work being read.

A child between one and two years old can look at a book for 10-20 minutes, but do not force him to do this, otherwise you will develop an aversion to books.

From 2 to 3 years

A two-year-old child continues to master the world through imitation, so reading at this age should be accompanied by an image of the action taking place on the pages of the book. For example, mom opens her palms wide and moves her fingers, showing how a butterfly flies in, then puffs out her cheeks importantly and spreads her arms - the clumsy Toptygin hobbles through the forest. In this way, a three-dimensional picture is built in the baby’s mind: he hears what his mother is reading to him about Teddy Bear, sees his image in the picture, and, in addition, with the help of his mother’s movements, learns what clumsiness is. Afterwards, the baby himself will try to portray the clubfooted Bear - at this age he really likes to be a “repeater”: jump like a bunny, wave his tail like a mouse, and break a testicle, and then cry over it like a grandparent...

By the age of three, the child already speaks well and turns into a real why - questions pour out of him like from a cornucopia, including while reading. While reading a book, explain to your child all incomprehensible words and expressions, but do not overdo it. There is a funny example: a mother, who was explaining to her child what “tskotukha” is, went into such wilds that the child fell asleep without waiting for his favorite fairy tale. Read the text several times - children love it. When there are fewer questions, there is an opportunity to work on the content of what you read.

Coloring books and books in which images of objects are inserted directly into the text increase the child’s motivation to read: going from picture to word, the baby will try to “read” on his own.

At the same age, it is appropriate to explain to the child how a book is structured - why a cover, binding, and title page are needed. You can say that a book, like a person, has its own passport - the title page, its own style of clothing - format, a “talking cover” that tells us about the author of this book, about the title. Ask your child to describe in words what the picture on the cover is about and use it to guess what the book is about.

Children of this age love to reread their favorite fairy tales several times. Every time before your child starts reading, offer a different fairy tale, even if you are sure he will refuse. At this age, the child is overwhelmed by a crisis of contradictions, so you can achieve your goal by the opposite method: if you don’t want it, you don’t have to, then I’ll read to a doll or a bear. In a second the child will say: “Read to me too!” Children under the age of three, or even four years old, listen mainly to the melody of the text, poetry, and they do not reproduce the storyline well. And they learn to respond to text by looking at you. Therefore, show your emotions correctly and do not be afraid to read “The Cockroach” by K. Chukovsky to the little one: from the height of your life experience, this is scary for you. But for a child, this poem is nothing more than a cheerful performance with a cheerful rhythmic pattern. Children at this age do not complete the logical chain and do not think, for example, about what will happen to the wolves if they eat each other.

From 3 to 6 years

In the period from 3 to 6 years old, a child quickly grows up, and his books grow up with him. Fairy tales by Pushkin, Andersen, Ershov, Volkov, Bazhov, and Russian folk tales are suitable for this age. To prevent your child from getting lost in literary events and images, ask him to retell what he read - everything in order, from the very beginning. This will develop his memory and logic.

A children's book is a harmony of text and graphics, text and extra-textual information. Don't forget about illustration. At this stage, it will serve as a practical guide in communicating with the book. The drawing should be designed for long-term viewing; the child returns to it more than once. The text next to the picture makes the latter “readable”. Looking at illustrations in parallel with reading helps to better perceive what you read.

At this age, a child can already perceive a work of art only by ear. For better perception, the baby should read it. And in order for children to accumulate not only information about characters and events, but also learn to connect the content of a book with its design and vice versa, you should definitely immediately after reading review with your children every book read according to all the rules:

• first, the mother reads the text to the child “eye to eye” and does not show the pictures;
• Then we look at the cover together, then slowly turn the pages;
• we think about what is shown on the cover, distinguish between illustrations and inscriptions;
• We demonstrate the order of reading the inscriptions from top to bottom, highlighting the author’s surname and the title of the book among the inscriptions on the cover;
• We correlate the author’s surname with the child’s personal reading experience, and the title of the book with the picture on the cover
• follows expressively, correctly placing accents. If it’s difficult for you to do this right away, practice first.

By the age of 5, some children begin to read on their own, but this should not be forced - as a result of scientific research, it has been proven that until the age of 6, a child mainly develops the right hemisphere, which is responsible for aesthetic development, and only then the left hemisphere (mathematical ), which is also responsible for reading.

Parents who want reading to remain one of their child's favorite activities for life should take into account the following important points.

Firstly, one should take into account the psychophysical characteristics inherent in children of each age group.

Thirdly, instill in your child a caring attitude towards books. It’s good if the family is initially sensitive to books. At the very least, books should be kept in a specific place. The child should be taught from a very early age that a book should not be torn, it must be read or examined carefully - it is “alive”, it tells us many fascinating stories. You can introduce a tradition at home: “invite” each new book into the house as your most dear guest, “seat” it in a place of honor on the bookshelf among other book friends. Look at the illustrations for the new book, guess who or what the story will be about. A new book should be read only when the child is emotionally ready for it. Fourth, do not read hastily with your child, turn reading into a kind of ritual. The child can take a position that is comfortable for him - most often babies climb onto their mother’s lap. Place it so that you can see the baby's reaction. For the first time, read “eye to eye” without being distracted by the illustrations. Explain to your child that the book does not like to be interrupted. Then look at the pictures and ask your child questions about them, try to find out whether he understands what is being said, or if something is not clear to him. Be sure to explain what the child did not understand and read the text again.

Fifthly, in order not to discourage a child from reading, never force him to read, and do not look at the clock - be guided only by whether the baby is interested or not. Never shame your child (especially in the presence of strangers) for not picking up a book for a whole week - this can cause him mental trauma. A win-win option, as in many other situations, remains education with love: leafing through your favorite books in an embrace with a child, reading, distributing roles with dad, you can achieve a much greater effect than excessive severity and prodding.